…

Eh, it’s still early. At this point, we’re still in wait and see mode when it comes to statistical performances.

Triple-A

The “Prospects” aren’t hitting much.

In 19 games in April, Brandon Nimmo hit .260/.333/.315 with seven walks and 18 strikeouts. One pretty good sign that the season is still young: Nimmo raised his batting average 64 points in the final final five games of the month by going 8-for-17 with two doubles. Again, Nimmo is developing a platoon split, hitting nearly .300 with a .375 on-base percentage against righties while going 3-for-20 (.150) with one walk and 10 strikeouts against southpaws. If you were the kind of person who wondered whether Nimmo would have the offensive chops (both hit tool and power), to play everyday in the big leagues, April will not be terribly encouraging.  

The Mets decided last winter that Neil Walker made more sense at second base than handing the job to Dilson Herrera. After Walker bopped nine homers in the big leagues in April, and Herrera hit .258/.279/.364 with seven doubles and no homers in the Pacific Coast League, that looks like a wise call in hindsight. Herrera has been earning less than a walk a week (two in 17 games). That’s not a great sign given that MLB pitchers exploited his aggressiveness in 2015.

Meanwhile, Herrera’s double-play partner–Gavin Cecchini–had a similar batting average, but arrived at the outcome in dissimilar fashion. He showed outstanding strike zone control (11 walks/11 strikeouts) in 20 games on his way to hitting .258/.364/.333 with two doubles and one home run. Yeah, sure, shortstops don’t have to hit 20 homers a year, but at what point does below-average power become a major liability?

The MLB depth guys are looking more, well, depth-y

Matt Reynolds, who’s now 25, hit .299/.379/.468 in 20 games mostly at third base with a few games at short and second. This doesn’t change any of my thinking about Reynolds, who I think would be a fine backup infielder. Should the Mets tire of Eric Campbell (1-for-10 in April), they could turn to Reynolds anytime.

Travis Taijeron, in his age-27 season, hit .299/.415/.522 with 10 extra-base hits and 20 strikeouts in 20 games. Mets fans whose memories go all the way back to Kirk Nieuwenhuis and Matt den Dekker, know what this looks like in the big leagues when a pretty good athlete in the OF strikes out this much in Triple-A. (Editor’s Note: Who else can’t believe those two have regular big-league jobs today?)

Speaking of strikeouts on the mound, Gabriel Ynoa isn’t getting enough of them. His 1.48 ERA looks sparkly, but his 12/9 K/BB ratio is a duller shade. It’s just tough, if not impossible to pitch in the big leagues with a 12.3 percent strikeout rate.

Double-A

Smith’s Whiffs

Lets compare Dominic Smith’s 2015 to his 2016.

You’re going to see versions of this chart again, friend. In his first month in Double-A, Smith is hitting for a smidge more power than he did in 2015, but his strikeout rate has climbed nine percentage points, an increase of 60 percent. That’s not good.

Go-Go Gsellman

We’re really interested in guys who are doing something differently in April than they were in the past, or than we had reason to suspect. While Smith’s strikeouts meet that criteria, so too do Robert Gsellman’s.

Here, we have an explanation as well. He’s learning the Warthen slider. It’s still a work in progress, but there is progress, at least enough to impress Jeff Paternostro last Sunday.

Akeel Morris’ Heel Turn

Remember when Mets fans wanted to talk about this righthander from the US Virgin Islands? Well, he allowed eight runs on two homers and eight walks in 10.1 innings in Double-A in April. Yeah, yeah, #SSS and all, but if he cannot demonstrate legitimate command, upper level hitters will pounce.  

High-A

Rosy (Amed) Rosario

The 20-year-old shortstop finished April by hitting .305/.340/.537 with five triples (!) and three home runs. There’s little to critique in this line or his work at the plate. He’s also become an active presence on twitter, where he seems to enjoy engaging with fans.

At the risk of slicing the apple too thin, he didn’t draw a walk in his first 10 games, but admitted on Twitter later in the month that he was working on his plate discipline.

Getting deeper into counts. Taking more walks. https://t.co/S5WRzFeT6Y

— Amed Rosario (@Amed_Rosario) April 25, 2016

 Oh, and he finished the month by earning walks in five of his next 13 games. That’s a welcome–if not damn exciting–development. 

Becerra’s Singles

I was excited about Wuilmer Becerra because I saw a young guy with a big league frame, who was strong and fast and already had easy power. I wondered whether he’d hit for average. And in 2016, he’s hit for average but no power. Oh, well. Through May 2nd, on the heels of an eight-game hitting streak, the 21-year-old is raking at .394/.437/.470. He leads the FSL in batting average by 49 (!) points but did not homer in the month. He’s also striking out far less than he used to. Check out the three year trends since the Appalachian League in 2014.

Becerra the singles hitter is a lot less interesting than the guy who looked like he could threatening to hit 25 homers in a season. Still the power’s in there. The question is whether he can add it back into his more contact-driven approach.  

Chris Flexen

Chris Flexen has made four starts. In each start, his opponents have only scored in one inning against him. The bad news was that in the first three starts, they hung crooked numbers on him (three runs twice and four runs once). In his fourth, he limited the damage to one run. Call it progress? Add it all up, and he’s doing ok: 3.76 ERA, 19 K/6 BB. While the 17.4 percent strikeout rate isn’t much to brag about, his 5.5 percent walk rate is a nice continuation of last year’s 5.2 percent mark with Savannah … and it is light years better (or half) of 2014’s 11.6 percent walk rate as a Sand Gnat. There’s a big league fastball in here, so that makes him one to watch.

Low-A

Vinny Sienna

I’d be remiss not to recognize 22-year-old 2B Vinny Sienna here. The UConn product is a little old for the SAL, but he hit .362/.495/.536 in April with 19 walks against 20 strikeouts in 22 games. I’ll believe he’s a guy when he does it in Double-A.

Milton Ramos

Drafted for his defense, the shortstop hit a meager .207/.270/.259 in 18 games for the Fireflies. Meh.

David Thompson

The 21-year-old former football player is showing some pop (12 XBH in 23 games) in an April in which he hit .301/.371/.506. That’s a nice start.

Luck of the Irish

Also, lefty PJ Conlon, who is trying to become the first Irish-born big leaguer since 1945, got going in the right direction with a 1.14 ERA and an 18/1 K/BB ratio in his 23.7 innings of work. It’s worth pointing out that finesse lefties (Mark Cohoon), or really any lefties who can spin a breaking ball, can have considerable success in the SAL. Still if Conlon, who moved to California at the age of two, succeeds, we can have more examples of Irish writing about baseball including such highlights as: “Conlon has work to do before he lines out for the New York Mets first team.” Also, apparently his uncle was a boxing “guru” in Ireland.

Also, I don’t know what you’d call this color (electric yellow? Neon awesome?) but it looks great on the Fireflies, and as a pleasant side benefit, surely offends the stodgiest among us.

Photo Credit: Scott Rovak-USA TODAY Sports

B-Mets Pitching Coach Glen Abbott explained that the slider was  a pitch we thought he needed to have to complement his curveball, changeup and fastball. “I told him last year and we started messing with it and I talked to [Mets Pitching Coordinator Ron] Romanick and we introduced it to him late in the year.”

For Gsellman, the process of learning the pitch relied on touch. The key he explained was understanding that for the pitch to work he needed to make it “more like a feel, as long as I can get a good feel, with the proper mechanics to get out front and on top of it and just let the grip do its work.”

Gsellman took the pitch home with him to Southern California and to his winter workouts at Barwis Methods in Port St. Lucie. By the accounts of coach and pupil, the offering is improving.

 Gsvllman said simply, “It’s coming along well.” Abbott was the more talkative of the pair, “It’s always gonna get better and true enough, we come to spring training and it’s better. I think it’s better now [in mid-April] than when he got to spring training even. It’s a pitch that’s gonna help him a lot.”

With the Mets graduating a rotation’s worth of young studs in the last three years, the system is thinner entering 2016. Gsellman does not not the front-line potential of the guys slinging heat in Queens. However, the solidly-built righthander has a fastball that lives in the low 90s and he spots it well. He has feel for a firm changeup, but struggled with his breaking ball in 2015.

In 2015 with Binghamton, Gsellman ran a 3.51 ERA in 16 starts over 92.1 innings with 49 strikeouts against 26 walks, an alarmingly low strikeout rate of just 13 percent.

Gsellman confessed that his curveball at the time was more like a “slurve” and was not consistent, in part due to his tendency to open his front side in his delivery. This meant that the breaking ball would stay up to his armside or he would have to “pull it.”

Abott was blunt about Gsellman’s 2015 arsenal, “I’d almost say his breaking ball didn’t help him when he was up here [in Double-A] last year. That’s how ineffective it was. He just didn’t throw it for strikes very good. What he did was pretty much with a fastball and a changeup that was too firm.”

 Early in 2016, now with his slider and curveball, the results are promising. Through four starts, Gsellman has fanned 21.3 percent of opposing hitters on his way to a 2.19 ERA in 24.2 innings.

Both player and coach suggest that learning the slider has turned into a two-for-one: it has also helped his curveball. Other pitchers in the system, notably Noah Syndergaard, have made similar arguments. The Warthen slider relies on a pitcher to throw the pitch hard, almost like a fastball, and trust the subtle manipulation in the grip to deliver the necessary movement. That nuance in manipulating the ball off a pitcher’s fingers can translate into other offerings.

Gsellman explains: “I just think it’s a feel thing. With a slider you have to get out front, and with a curveball you get around it a little more and stay on top of it. I can feel it coming through my arm motion.”

Abbott sees the transfer. “That’s what [the slider] did to the curveball, it tightened it up. Everything gets tightened up when you throw a slider, and he’s incorporated that into the curveball.”

Gsellman and Abbott agree that he’s pitching more aggressively with more confidence in 2016. And why not? He’s got a new toy and a few good starts to begin the year.

Photo Credit: Reinhold Matay-USA TODAY Sports

High-A St. Lucie Mets – Hitters

This is a fun infield! Shortstop Amed Rosario earned the No. 2 spot on the BP Mets Top 10 list which, given that Matz is #1, is consistent with the fact that there were plenty of scouts in the 2015 season who thought he was the Mets’ best prospect.

The Mets started the 20-year-old back in St. Lucie rather than send him to near-Arctic Binghamton climate April. There had to many happy smiles in Flushing when he went 3-for-5 with a walkoff homer on Opening Night this year. The home run was his first since June 18, 2014 for Brooklyn. Prospect depth is overrated. If Rosario, the franchise’s best and brightest guy, develops to a point where it looks like he’s a MLB star–and that’s a massive if–then that will swamp nearly anything else happens among the minor leaguers in 2016.

To Rosario’s right, Jhoan (pronounced: Johan) Urena will man the hot corner. Urena turned 21 last September after a largely lost season in which he hit .214/.257/.267 in 64 games in St. Lucie while missing nearly half the season with a broken hamate bone and wrist issues. Urena is now about the appropriate age for a good prospect in the Florida State League. As a bat-first third baseman, the numbers have to be there in 2016 for him to maintain his prospect status.

The Mets have paired Rosario with Luis Guillorme up the middle. The idea is that Guillorme, who is an excellent, fun-to-watch defender at short, will learn second alongside Rosario. Here’s a less than bold prediction: Guilllorme will be a terrific defender at second. Guillorme–a smart baseball player–was surprisingly effective with the bat in 2015, slapping his way to .318/.391/.354 performance in Savannah. His presence on the roster also allows the Mets the latitude to move Rosario up to Double-A as soon as he’s ready.

Out in right field, Wuilmer Becerra was the No. 8 prospect for the Mets at BP. I don’t have much to add to Jeff’s preseason comments: he looks the part, has all the tools, and just needs to find repeatable, effective swing mechanics. He’s one to dream on.

In center, I still love Champ Stuart’s speed; he was 21-for-24 stealing bases in 2015. Then again, he hit just .176/.271/.242 with 141 strikeouts (!) in 97 games in for St. Lucie last year. Stuart is now 23 years old, and even though he once scored from second on a sacrifice fly, he just does not show the hit tool of a big leaguer. But if he can ever add a little bit of contact to strong center field tools, he’s a real dude again.

Baseball America named John Mora to the second-to-last spot in their Top 30. I don’t get it. Mora had a fine season for Savannah–particularly in the second half, when he hit .310/.383/.465 with 23 walks against 25 strikeouts in 54 games. That kind of plate discipline is nice, but he’s still a little guy who is underpowered, and looking to pull the ball nearly every time he makes contact. He just does not profile at all defensively in center field or offensively on a corner.

Not pictured: third baseman Eudor Garcia, who was suspended 80 games for testing positive for a pair of diuretics (masking agents) in January.

High-A St. Lucie Mets – Pitchers

The guy to watch here on the hill is Chris Flexen, a personal favorite of mine since his first professional start out of high school in 2012. He has a good pitcher’s frame at 6’3″, 215 pounds and he moves well.

However, he’s moved slowly. He had to repeat the Appalachian League in 2012-2013 and then had Tommy John surgery … plus he had bone chips removed from his elbow in 2014, which truncated his 2015. When he returned, he threw the ball with purpose and made eight good starts for Savannah down the stretch. This is a semi-aggressive assignment, but he’ll be 22 on July 1, so it’s time to take a step.

Flexen’s fastball lives in the low-90s, but he can get it up to 95 when he reaches back. He has a curveball in which I see potential, and likes to throw a slider / cutter thing that I think should be tossed in the nearest dumpster.

Single-A Columbia Fireflies – Hitters

On the business side of the minor leagues, the franchise formerly known as the Savannah Sand Gnats moved to Columbia, South Carolina to become the Columbia Fireflies in a brand spanking new stadium – Spirit Communications Park.  

There’s a blanket statement that applies to nearly every player on the roster: the jump to a full-season roster will be an interesting test. The Brooklyn, Kingsport and GCL seasons are really short and most of the guys live in dormitory-style housing. Now, they’ll be out on their own in a way that they were not in their previous baseball stops.

The top prospect on this roster, which is a little thin, is 20-year-old shortstop Milton Ramos, the Mets’ third round pick out of high school in Florida in the 2014 draft. At draft time, he had a reputation as a strong defender who was light with the bat. In 2015, in 43 games in the GCL, he hit a batting average-heavy .317/.341/.415. He could use a little patience; he walked in 3.9 percent of his Appalachian League plate appearances.

First baseman Dash Winningham–who Jeff described as “country strong”–did pop 12 homers on his way to a .213 isolated slugging percentage in Kingsport in 2015 as a 19-year-old. The Mets plucked the now 20-year-old out of high school in Florida in the eighth round in 2014, and he’s a little young for the South Atlantic League level. He’s a long way away, and he’ll need to improve on his 5.2 percent walk rate from Kingsport a year ago, but hey, his first name is “Dash,” and that’s a skill you just cannot teach.

Watching Ivan Wilson is fun. He’s big, strong, fast with a good arm and plays a strong center field. When he connects, the ball goes. However, he often does not connect–he fanned in 34 percent of his 2015 plate appearances in 2015 while hitting .247/.337/.349 in 42 games. He’ll never be a high average guy, but .260 through the minors with power and center field defense would get him a big league look some day. He’ll turn 21 at the end of May, so he is playing at an age-appropriate level in 2016.  

As the Mets’ eighth round pick out of Stetson in 2015, catcher Patrick Mazeika was on the older side for the Appalachian League. Still, he hit a loud looking .354/.451/.540 with a nearly 1-to-1 strikeout-to-walk ratio (24 walks against 26 strikeouts). Even lousy catchers often play in Double-A, so if Mazeika can hit at all in full-season ball, he’ll have a real chance to make a case for himself in the upper minors.   

Third baseman David Thompson is a little bit interesting as a strong guy who used to be a two-sport athlete. He didn’t hit much in Brooklyn (.218/.268/.320 in 59 games) but hey, football!

Single-A Columbia Fireflies – Pitchers

The Mets set a new record when they signed 11th-round pick Tyler Bashlor for $550,000 in 2013. He’s a six-footer who can run it up to the upper 90s, but his 2013 season in the Kingsport bullpen was unremarkable. He’s missed the the last two seasons with Tommy John surgery, and will turn 23 in under a week. If the velocity is there, he could move relatively quickly as a bullpen arm.

Johnny Magliozzi returned from his own Tommy John surgery at the end of 2015, so he’s thrown just 22.1 innings in the last two years … but he did throw the final inning Saturday night to make history in the Fireflies’ first franchise win.

Of course, we would be remiss here to fail to mention that Columbia Fireflies earned that first win when three pitchers, Magliozzi, Thomas McIlraith and Alex Palsha combined on a 13-strikeout no-hitter against the Yankees’ SAL affiliate, the Charleston RiverDogs. Congrats, fellas!

Photo Credit: Jim Brown-USA TODAY Sports

Dominic Smith

Lets talk about Mr. Smith, who will turn 21 on June 15, and who Jeff Paternostro and company named the No. 5 Mets prospect entering this season. Smith won the 2015 Florida State MVP on the strength of a .305/.354/.417 triple-slash line with 33 doubles and six home runs in 118 games. He was first in the FSL in doubles and RBI (79), fourth in both batting average and slugging percentage, and fifth in hits. The six homers are glaringly low from a well-regarded first base prospect. Simply put, he needs to get the ball over the wall more regularly to prove that he can be an above-average MLB first baseman. Otherwise, he’ll be the guy who gets to the majors, plays for a while, but is always looking over his shoulder as his team shops for an upgrade.

He was also first in grounding into double plays, which leads us to talk about his hit tool. Where his BP writeup talks about “feel for the bat head” and a hitter who “covers the outer half well,” the discerning reader should interpret that as a hitter who is very comfortable shooting the ball the other way into left-centerfield. That’s who Smith is primarily. But he does not yet have the feel, comfort, or mechanics to drive the ball with authority to his pull side in right field. In 2015, Smith ran a .351 batting average on balls in play. Against higher-caliber defenses and pitchers, that’s likely to fall and drag his overall line down. On the bright side, his approach is relatively refined–he didn’t strike out much (15 percent k-rate) and walked at a respectable rate (seven percent walk rate). Still, he’ll need to learn to work counts and pick up a few more walks as he moves up the ladder.

Smith is young, but this is an important season for him. Everything about his profile puts pressure on his bat. He’s put on weight since his draft, and that hurts his range; that’s important because his defense has been a selling point until now. Still, first basemen are not paid on their defense. The bottom line is Smith needs to prove that he can mix excellent hand-eye coordination and a developing approach with the ability to hit the ball over the wall.

Other Hitters

Jeff McNeil, who will celebrate his 24th birthday on Friday, will be hanging around the Binghamton infield at shortstop, second and third base. McNeil played very little baseball before college at Long Beach–he was an elite golfer–and in some ways is still raw. However, he runs, hits for average, and has defensive versatility. There’s not much power here and he struggles against lefties, as his mechanics go backwards against southpaws. I doubt that McNeil is an average MLB player, but I think he’s likely to play in the big leagues at some point.

There are a pair of mid-round prospects from the 2013 draft who are running out of time to prove that they have viable big league futures. L.J. Mazzilli, the Mets fourth round pick in 2013, will play the 2016 season as a 25-year-old. He probably gets too much attention from fans at large who fondly remember his father–Lee Mazzilli–and his connection to the World Series Champion Mets of 1986. After returning from his 50-game suspension for a drug of abuse from the fall of 2014, Mazzilli hit .263/.337/.334 in 86 games in Double-A in 2015. He’s more mechanical than graceful at second base. Since he’s limited to second and teams don’t generally carry second-base-only bench guys, it’s hard to see where Mazzilli fits into a big league roster.

A round after Mazzilli, the Mets plucked Jared King out of Kansas State, move that earned praise at the time, for its “value.” He’ll be 24 in the 2016 season coming off a 2015 season in which he hit .214/.262/.286 in 122 games in Double-A. The B-Mets ran King out there a little bit in center field last year, but he really belongs on a corner.

Pitchers

On the hill, Robert Gsellman is the team’s top hurler. I wrote about him in the Triple-A preview, but the Mets went with the less aggressive assignment for the 22-year-old by sending him back to Double-A after 16 starts at the level a year ago. The rotation is relatively uninteresting behind Gsellman with Tyler Pill–who was hit hard in Triple-A last year–joining Rainy Lara and friends. Not much to see here. But rather unusually for a minor league affiliate, the bullpen here in Bingo is at least as interesting as the starting rotation.

Akeel Morris, the little live-armed 23-year-old who made his big league debut late in 2015, returns to Binghamton. He’s put up big strikeout numbers and walked too many guys on his way through the minors to Double-A. He complements mid-90s heat with some shaky secondary offerings: a changeup and slider. The next step is to tighten up one of those to complement his fastball … and learn how to avoid walking 13 percent of opposing hitters.

Luis Mateo excited Mets fans with 85 strikeouts and a 2.45 ERA all way back in 2012 for Brooklyn … then he blew out his elbow early in the 2013 season after one spot start for Double-A Binghamton. He was replaced in the Binghamton rotation by Jacob deGrom … so phrased another way, the Mets gave Mateo a chance at Double-A before deGrom. Mateo, who has made 25 relief appearances in 2014 and 2015, has not started a game since. He made 10 appearances with Savannah in 2015, and I thought his stuff did not look as good as it did in 2012. Maybe, at age 26, he can regain that low-mid 90s fastball and biting slider. Maybe.

Logan Taylor returned from 2013 Tommy John surgery to pitch well for Savannah at the end of the 2014 season and then made 22 starts for High-A St. Lucie in 2015. He’s a big guy at six-foot-five who could throw in the low-90s as a starter, so the idea is that he will get a velocity boost by moving to the bullpen. That could make him interesting.

[Yes, the minor league season started Thursday. Apologies to you friendly readers for the relative tardiness of these previews, a pressing family issue took me away from my laptop for the better part of a week.]

Photo Credit: Reinhold Matay-USA TODAY Sports

There is usually little point in discussing whether a minor league team is going to be good relative to the other teams in the league. Minor league teams serve the purpose of the big league team, primarily to develop future major league-caliber players. In the case of Triple-A, the team is designed to hold depth and provide insurance for the season’s inevitable injuries and churn. My point is that in most cases, discussing a team’s composition is a fool’s errand. Instead, focus on the prospects that matter at each level.

(Jeff Paternostro’s 2016 Mets Top 10 Prospects is absolutely required required reading. Relatively little has changed in the last five weeks, so in most cases, I’ll spend less time on those Top 10 guys.)

With relative stability on the big league staff following a successful 2015, the upper reaches of the minors saw very little churn among the field staff. The managers and coaches–like the players–aspire to reach or return to the show. The 2016 Las Vegas 51s return the same identical coaching staff as the 2015 version of the team with Wally Backman serving his fifth season as manager, Frank Viola his third as pitching coach, and Jack Voigt in his second as hitting coach. Keep this in mind: it is a matter of when–not if–Viola will get a shot as a big league pitching coach.

Brandon Nimmo

Nimmo’s spring was slowed by a torn muscle in his foot. While Jeff rightly wondered if this–combined with a history of knee problems–would force Nimmo from center field to left field, I wonder if this foot injury is an indication of something else. Nimmo is one of the hardest workers in the system, and I’ve admired how he seemed to come to Spring Training in bigger and better shape than he ended the previous year. Maximizing one’s natural gifts is usually the goal. However, for guys on the margin–and Nimmo now falls into this category–the level of effort required to push their body to keep up with their more talented roster-mates can induce breakdowns.

Anyway, while Nimmo has not hit enough in the upper minors to suggest that he’s an everyday player, his platoon splits do argue strongly that he’ll find a big league job. Combining his time in Double-A and Triple-A in the 2014 and 2015 seasons, he’s run a .174/.290/.225 line in 208 PA against lefthanders with exactly zero homeruns. That’s not good. On the other hand, he’s hit .285/.369/.425 in 713 PA against righties with a 17.1 percent strikeout rate and a 10.7 percent walk rate.

It just does not seem like that much of a stretch of imagination to see Nimmo as the left-handed half of a platoon.

Dilson Herrera

With 169 PA over the 2014 and 2015 seasons, Herrera no longer has rookie eligibility and thus does not appear on Baseball Prospectus’ Top 101 or any other prospect list. Despite that, he’ll be the best Mets “prospect” in the minors to start the 2015 season, and would easily belong in a Top 101. He did enough good in 31 games in the majors in 2015 to post a 0.5 WARP while hitting .211/.311/.367 with three home runs and a pair of stolen bases … at 21 years old.

The Mets temporarily blocked Herrera’s return to the show by trading for Neil Walker to play second base, and that pushed Herrera back to Las Vegas. His primary mission will be to become a more selective hitter; he walked in just 7.7 percent of his plate appearances in Triple-A in 2015. If he hits, there could well be opportunity back in the big leagues this year. In the event that David Wright cannot play every day, and Herrera beats up on Triple-A again, the Mets could shift Walker over to third to play Herrera at second while keeping Wilmer Flores in a super-sub/Lucas Duda’s caddy vs. LHP role.

Other Hitters

Jeff’s No. 4 Mets prospect, Gavin Cecchini, is headed to Vegas to start the year in his age-22 season. There’s a big leaguer in here, but probably a below-average starter. It is worth pointing out that Cecchini exhibited outstanding strike zone control in Double-A in 2015, walking in 8.7 percent of his plate appearances while fanning in just 11.3 percent, over 485 PA.

I suppose this is the place for a quick note about outfielder Travis Taijeron, who won the Mets’ John J. Murphy award for top Spring Training performance by a rookie. All together now: SPRING TRAINING STATS DO NOT MATTER. Taijeron, who turned 27 on January 20, hit .274/.393/.536 in 127 games in Las Vegas in 2015. He’s patient and strong; when he connects, he can hit a ball a long way as evidenced by his 50 extra-base hits. However, this is a swing big league pitchers will exploit in a way minor leaguers can’t. He has a very deep load, with a near-armbar that will leave him vulnerable to fastballs in. Even in Triple-A, he struck out in 30.8 percent of his plate appearances. Big league pitchers will eat him alive.

Pitchers

Things are a little leaner on the mound here after the Matt Harvey, Zack Wheeler, Jacob deGrom, Noah Syndergaard, and Steven Matz parade through the upper minors in the last few years.

Instead, the “big” names in the Triple-A rotation will be a pair of pitchers with decent fastballs, reasonable command, and not quite enough breaking ball. And they both need to prove they can miss enough bats to compete as upper level starters. For all the excitement about Robert Gsellman’s hair in Spring Training, the right-hander fanned just 12.7 percent of opponents in 16 starts in Double-A during 2015 on his way to a 3.51 ERA. As Jeff noted, Gsellman has a nice potential curveball, he just does not throw it enough. Still, his future might be dialing his fastball up from the low 90s as a starter to 94ish out of the bullpen in short bursts. There’s still a chance that he’ll open up at a Double-A, rather than in Vegas.

The details are a little different for Gabriel Ynoa, but the punchline is awfully similar: with a strikeout rate of 12.9 percent in Double-A, he did not miss enough bats in 2015 to suggest that he has a future as a big league starter. Still, he can run it up to 95 at max effort, so perhaps there’s a viable reliever in here as well.

Lefty Josh Smoker, a former first round pick of the Washington Nationals, has bounced back from multiple shoulder surgeries to find his mid-90s heat. The Mets added him to the 40-man roster in November, so it’s a pretty good bet he’ll get a look at some point in 2016 as the bullpen churns.

Photo Credit: David Kohl-USA TODAY Sport